There is an old Celtic saying: "Anyone without a soul friend is a body without a head." There are not many Celtic sayings about what people without success are; the Celts didn't seem to be terribly interested in success. But they were pretty big on friendship.

I've been thinking about this because I just got back from a once-a-year weekend with four of my oldest friends. We've been friends for over thirty years.

Mark is the smartest of us. He does philosophy professionally. None of us argue with him, because we're afraid that if we did, he might prove we don't exist.

Tommy is the WD-40 of human relationships. He makes any group he's a part of better, more human, and deeper, because of his ability to draw out whatever is inside of you.

Kevin is a charmer. Girls were drawn to him enough in college that we used to hang around just hoping for a chance with some of his discards.

And Chuck is my oldest friend, whose sense of humor can be described only as demented ...